Posts by Slarti 4 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Feb 2008
/^v.+b$/i
Various bad puns based on RIP:
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.
function Peace(){
sleep(1);
}
or
while(true){ sleep(1); }
or a full class
class Stob extends Person{
const DOB; //Set your value here
const DOD; //Set your value here
public function Stob(){
$now = new DateTime();
while($now < DOD){
$this->live();
$now = new DateTime();
}
}
public function __destruct(){
while(true){
sleep(peace);
}
}
}
$stob = new Stob();
Did you really think about this or did you just take the police version at face value:
"Of course, there can be legitimate reasons for opposing the use of cameras. In talking to El Reg about the law on photography, several Police Forces made the fair comment that there were individuals who had learnt how to use cameras at demonstrations as a means to wind individual officers up."
I think you're probably referring to FitWatch (http://www.fitwatch.blogspot.com/). The ironic thing is this is a recently developed tactic to counter the *police* use of over-the-top surveillance as a form of harassment. The FIT (Forward Intelligence Teams) are a group of usually 3-4 cops with long-lense cameras, video cameras, etc. Sometimes they film/photograph everyone coming in or out of an event, often just a meeting to talk about an event. Sometimes they follow an individual around on a demonstration, including a simple A-B march. They specialise in learning information about known activists and then telling those people things about themselves (including their private lives, employment, etc.) just to intimidate. To have four people, all with police powers following you (personally) all day on a march and then following you to the pub afterwards, often looking for opportunities to hassle/search/arrest you and on occasion assaulting people *is* clearly harassment.
It turns out, when people started pointing cameras back at them, that these same FIT teams are about the most camera shy cops you'll ever find! So some people (disclosure: I've been on demos, I've been hassled by the FIT but not as badly as some folk, I've not (yet) taken part in a FITwatch type action although I have pointed a camera back at them on occasion) decided to push back a bit by making it more difficult for them to hassle people. This is partly by turning cameras back at them and partly by using banners, or their own bodies, to block the view of the FIT cameras. Frankly, people should be able to go to a meeting to discuss, say, the arms trade, without ending up on a police database just for doing that.
"Undoubtedly, this happens – although as with any such abuse, perhaps it should be punished appropriately when it does, rather than used as a reason for clamping down more widely."
How exactly is it abuse? The police who are policing a demo are public officials acting in a public capacity. As members of the public one of the few ways we can hold them to account is by photographing them. This could be when they are harassing other people, arresting people, stopping and searching people, etc. It also can act as a deterrent - if they know all arrests will be photographed you tend to get fewer people injured during arrest, for example. I've discussed the issue with senior police officers (Inspector up to Chief Super) at liaison meetings about future demos and they have always said they we are perfectly within our rights to take photos of the cops at demos. (There is also an issue that many of the activists in such situations are also there in a journalistic capacity for news sites such as IndyMedia.)
Intrusive photography can be used as one tool in harassing someone, as described above by the FIT for example. However, there are three key differences between activists photographing the cops and the FIT tactics. One is that we don't follow them to the pub afterwards, talk loudly about their private lives (using information gleaned from confidential sources), etc. Another is that we don't gang up on them four on one and don't have powers to repeatedly search them, arrest them, etc. But the main one is that we are private citizens exercising our rights to freedom of speech and assembly - they are public officials, on duty and acting as such and we don't go beyond that into their private lives.
I would also add that it is a well-established principle of law in relation to issues like provocation, etc. that the police are expected, through their training, experience and public role, to be thicker-skinned than members of the public. Thus, if the police are accepting that photographing police officers winds them up then why are they going so over the top in winding up members of the public when they are supposed to be (and claim to be) trying to keep things calm and "facilitate lawful protest".
I'd also add that while there is no general law preventing the police taking photographs of people on the street (and more than there is of us taking photographs of them) there is no law requiring you to allow them to take your photograph, even during a stop and search. Thus putting your hand (or a banner or placard) in front of your face is perfectly legal. The only situation the police can force you to have your photo taken is once they've arrested you.
"Part of the problem, as far as authority is concerned, is the sheer scale of public photography."
Which still pales by comparison with the CCTV coverage! But anyway, why is this a problem? I could understand official concern about covert surveillance/potential terrorist reccies on ultra-sensitive sites (any site open to the public or visible on google earth is *not* in this category due to the usual horse/stable door reasoning). I can understand concerns over long-lense photography into peoples private house/gardens/etc. I can understand concerns over photographs of children without parental consent (another thing the FIT do a lot). But people taking pictures on public streets as a concern in and of itself? Or taking pictures of public officials acting in that capacity? Why?
Apart from all the other problems, I was especially struck by your quote from BT's FAQ: "Once you have opted out, the opt out cookie prevents any of your browsing from being collected,".
Does that mean that if you have sensible privacy settings which, for instance, delete all cookies at the end of a session, that you have to opt out again at the start of every browser session? That is NOT a reasonable opt-out option. If they're sticking hardware in the stream to get the info, they can bloody well remmeber who has opted out at that level.
I think the Childrens Commissioner and Shami are spot on on this one.
I've never seen anyone claim it stops murders, Jon G, that's ridiculous! You should know by now that that's what all the CCTV is for...
It's meant to stop groups of kids (many of whom probably have sod all else in terms of places to go) from hanging around shopping centres. This is primarily justified on the basis that groups of teenagers are, by definition, evil and scary. (No-one seems to consider that if kids these days *are* such thugs, then maybe those kids who want to hang out with their friends without getting stabbed, etc. would choose to do so in a public place like, say, a town centre or a shopping area!)
That said, the "never use a weapon that could be turned back against you" logic also applies. A friend of mine told me recently that the kids in her son's school had sampled this noise and use it as a ring tone on their mobiles. This means they can text each other during class and they hear the phone go off, but the teacher doesn't! Who said the youth of today have no initiative?
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